AFRI Education and Workforce Development

The AFRI Education and Workforce Development Program focuses on developing the next generation of research, education, and extension professionals in the food and agricultural sciences. The program educates professionals to lead agriculture into the future by solving current and future challenges facing our farmers, ranchers, and foresters.

The AFRI Education and Workforce Development Program (EWD) addresses projected shortfalls of qualified graduates in the agricultural, food, forestry, range and energy resources sectors of the U.S. economy. Thus, the AFRI EWD has four overarching goals:

Growing Agricultural Literacy and Workforce Development for the Future offers institutional grants to provide K-14 teachers and administrators with increased knowledge of the food and agricultural sciences and help them develop improved curricula to train the agricultural workforce for the future.
- Professional Development for Agricultural Literacy (Program Code A7501)
Training or Retaining of Agricultural Workers provides institutional training grants to develop a technology- and data-savvy workforce ready for the field and industrial jobs.
- Agricultural Workforce Training Grants at Community Colleges (Program Code A7601)
Developing Pathways provides formal or non-formal education and experiential learning for students to enter or gain skills applicable to the food and agriculture fields. EWD seeks to support the development of non-formal education activities that cultivate interest and build public confidence in the safe and enhanced use of technology in food and agricultural sciences.
- Food and Agricultural Non-formal Education (Program Code A7801)
- Research and Extension Experiences for Undergraduates (Program Code A7401)
Advancing Science supports graduate and post-graduate education in food and agriculture disciplines.
- Predoctoral Fellowships (Program Code A7101)
- Postdoctoral Fellowships (Program Code A7201)

New in 2026: Education and Workforce Development Workshop Grants

Year-round Education and Workforce Development Workshop Grants (Program Code A7001) develop activities and programing that bring stakeholders together to discuss, coordinate, and advance innovations supportive of food and agriculture-related disciplines and workforce.

Workshop grant applications should focus on at least one of the four overarching goals of the AFRI EWD Program, listed above.

Workshop Grant applications are accepted after submission of a Letter of Intent (LOI). See Letter of Intent Instructions under "Related Documents" on the AFRI NOFO Resources webpage.
The LOI must be submitted a minimum of 255 days before the start of the workshop. The full Workshop Grant application must be submitted a minimum of 210 days before the start of the workshop.